There was something in the abrupt manner of asking this, which suddenly convinced Orlando that the General had no inclination to ask him into his house. Piqued by his observation, he answered coldly, that there was no occasion to trouble his servants, for that he should walk to the house of his uncle, and would send a porter for the small portmanteau he had in the chaise. – By this time the General’s valet de chambre had opened the chaise-door, and Orlando , who was on that side, got out. He stopped; and the General, as he followed him, asked, in a low voice, some question of one of the footmen who had been left in town, and who came to the chaise-door also: to which question the man answered aloud, ‘No, Sir! She is gone out.’ The General, turning to Orlando, who was coolly wishing him a good evening, said – ‘You will certainly do me the favour to walk in?’
Orlando by this time comprehending that there was some lady usually resident with him who was not to be seen, and that he was only asked in because she was at this time absent, answered, that he would not intrude upon him: – ‘but as I shall want the advantage of your instructions, Sir,’ said he, ‘on many things of which I am totally ignorant, I shall be obliged to you to tell me where I am to receive your orders.’
There was a coldness, and indeed a haughtiness, in the manner of Orlando’s saying this, that convinced the General he saw and was offended by the evident design he had himself formed of evading to give him an invitation. More disconcerted than he had almost ever felt in his life, he again pressed him to go into the house, which Orlando again refused; and then saying he hoped to hear from him at Mr Woodford’s, when and where he might attend him for the purpose of receiving those instructions relative to his future proceedings which he had promised his father to give him, he again wished him a good evening, and walked away.
Orlando had never been in London but once when he was about sixteen, and had then only attended his mother on a visit for about a week in the spring, which she had passed with her brother. He remembered that he never was so happy as when they left it, and, on a fine evening of May, returned from the smoke of the Strand, in one of the streets of which Mr Woodford lived, to his dear native county, where only there seemed to be any happiness for him. Since that time he had never felt a wish to revisit London; and in a melancholy mood he now proceeded along the streets, recollecting little more than his way from Piccadilly to the Strand. Every object wore a very different appearance from what they did when he saw them before. It was now a dreary, foggy evening in December, and just at the hour when the inhabitants of the part of the town he was in were at their desserts, so that hardly any carriages but a few straggling hackney-coaches and drays were rumbling over the pavement. As he approached Charing Cross the bustle became more; and the farther he advanced, the throng of coaches coming out of the city, and going towards the playhouses from other parts of the town, deafened him with noise: but it was a mournful reflection, that, among all the human beings he saw around him, there was not one interested for him. While the dirt through which he waded, and the thickness of the air, filled him with disgust, his mind went back to the dear group at home: he saw them all assembled round the fire in the little parlour – his father trying to dissipate with a book the various anxieties that assailed him for his children, now and then communicating some remarkable occurrence to his wife as she sat at her work-table: – he saw Isabella employed in making some little smart article of dress, and fancying how well she should look in it – and Selina, while she and Emma were assisting his mother in completing some linen for him, more attentive to her father’s reading, often asking questions, and soliciting information.
But when he had finished this picture, his fancy, with more pain and more pleasure, fled to the lovely figure of his Monimia in her solitary turret, sighing over the tender recollection of those hours which would never perhaps return, sometimes wishing she had never known them, but oftener regretting that they were now at an end. – He saw her stepping cautiously into the library, whenever she could to find it open, to take or to replace some book which they had read together – she shed tears as she read over the well-known pages where he had with a pencil marked some peculiar beauty in the poetry. He fancied he saw her take out the lock of his hair which he had given her in a little crystal locket, press it to her lips, and then, imagining she heard the footsteps of her aunt, return it hastily into her bosom, and place it near her heart. A thousand tender images crowded on his mind; he quite forgot whither he was going, and was roused from this absent state of mind only by finding himself at Temple-Bar. Recalled then from the indulgence of his visionary happiness to the realities around him, he recollected that he had passed the street where his uncle lived: with some enquiries, however, he found his way back; and, on arriving at the house, he heard that Mr Woodford was out, having dined in the city; and that his wife and his daughters were gone to the play with a party of friends who were to sup with them. He was told, however, by the maid-servant who let him in, that he was expected, and that a bed had been prepared for him by direction of her master, who had received notice of his intended arrival by a letter from the country the day before. Orlando could not help remarking to himself, that he was likely to have but a cool reception in an house, the inhabitants of which could not one of them stay at home to receive him; but he was new to the world, and his heart open to all the generous sympathies of humanity. He thought that relations loved one another as well in London as in the country; but he soon saw enough of these to make him resign, with perfect composure, a too strict adherence to old-fashioned claims of kindred.
CHAPTER VI
A MOMENT’S reflection recalled the confused and dissipated thoughts of Orlando back to the transactions of the day. He had never liked General Tracy much; and he now liked him less than ever, and regretted that Isabella was to be his wife. He almost doubted whether he ever meant to make her so; and the idea of any deception raised his indignation. But he had nobody to whom he could communicate his thoughts: and it was perhaps fortunate for him that he had not; for his open, unguarded temper, incapable of dissimulation, and despising it wherever it appeared, was likely to have betrayed him into confidences with his uncle which would have hurt his father.
The moment, however, he saw Woodford, he shrunk into himself; and, instead of remembering that he had not been at home to receive him, felt only concern that he was come home at all.
Warm from a city dinner, the boisterous manners of his uncle apeared particularly disgusting to Orlando, who had lately been accustomed to associate only with women, or with his father and the General; the conversation of the former of whom was pensively mild, and that of the latter so extremely courtly that he seemed always to fancy himself in the drawing-room. Orlando, therefore, was almost stunned with the halloo of his uncle on receiving him: he shook him, however, heartily by the hand, crying – ‘Well, my boy! I’m glad to see thee: though devilishly thou art bit, my little hero, to find that all that old Tabby’s fine promises end in sending thee to carry a rag upon a pole, and get shot through the gizzard by the Yankies. – Aha! I was right, you see. – Take my word another time. I know the world, and never saw the waiting for such chances answered – A young fellow may wait till he is grey on one of those hags, and the devil a bit to find himself the forwarder at last. – They never die; for o’ my conscience I believe they have each of them as many lives as a cat: and when at last they have the conscience to turn the corner, it’s ten to one but they bilk you after all. – No, no: take my advice another time – never depend upon them; ’tis better to shift for one’s self.’
‘Well, Sir,’ said Orlando, whom this harangue equally tired and disgusted, ‘you see that I have followed your advice, by embracing a profession –’
‘A profession!’ cried Woodford with a contemptuous look; ‘and what a profession! – To be shot at for about five-and-thirty pounds a year! Hey? Or how much is it? Thereabouts, I believe. – A rare profession, when a man ties himself down to be at the command of about a dozen others!’ –
In this manner he ran on, nothing doubting the shrewdness of his remarks, and not meaning to be rude and brutal in making them: yet Orlando felt that he was both; nor was he much relieved by the change in the conversation that brought the General’s intended match into discussion. Woodford was at once flattered by such an alliance, and mortified that his own daughters had missed it. He felt proud that he should boast of having the Honourable Lieutenant General Tracy his nephew, but was vexed that he had not had any share in bringing it about; and this contrariety of sensations found vent in the coarse raillery he uttered to Orlando, who was once or twice on the point of losing his temper, before the entrance of the ladies and their party from the play put an end to a dialogue so very disagreeable to him.
Young Woodford, who, having quitted trade to study the law, was now a motley composition between a city buck and a pert Templar, accompanied his mother and sisters; which he took care to signify was a great favour, and not owing to his wish to oblige them – but to see how he liked a young woman they had with them from the city, and who was the only daughter of a rich broker of the tribe of Israel, who had, however, married a Christian, and was indifferent enough about his own religion to let his daughter be called a Christian also. Her fortune was supposed to be at least seventy thousand pounds; and Mr Woodford had long been scheming to procure a match between her and his Jemmy: – to which Jemmy declared he would condescend, if he could but bring himself to like the girl. But he ‘thought her confounded ugly, and had no notion of sacrificing himself to money.’ The girl herself, just come from a boarding-school, her head full of accomplishments and romance, was in great haste for a lover. Mr James Woodford was reckoned, by some of his young acquaintance, a very smart, fashionable man; and Miss Cassado needed very little persuasion to fancy herself in love with him.
The intended husband of Maria Woodford, and a young man who seemed to have pretensions to the other sister, were the rest of the party; who, preceded by Mrs Woodford, now appeared. The ladies of the family spoke with cool civility to Orlando – the younger Woodford with the air that he imagined a man of fashion would assume for the reception of his country cousin: but under this apparent contempt he concealed the mortification he felt from the observation that Orlando, who was always admired by the women, was much improved in his person since he last saw him.
With his two female cousins Orlando had never been a favourite, notwithstanding his acknowledged beauty; and that for no other reason than because he had never paid to their charms the tribute of admiration they expected from every body. Eliza particularly disliked him, because he had refused a sort of proposal made by her father to give him her hand and a share of the business. But the young Jewess, who consulted only her eyes, immediately discovered by their information, that this stranger was the sweetest, handsomest, most enchanting man in the world; and that James Woodford was nothing to him. She had her imagination filled with heroes of novels, and the figure and face of Orlando exactly corresponded with the ideas of perfection she had gathered from them; while the natural good-breeding which accompanied whatever he said, and that sort of pensive reserve he maintained in such a company, which gave to his manner peculiar softness, placed him at once among the dear creatures with which her head was always full; and she either so little knew, or so little wished to conceal, the impression he had made, that James Woodford and his mother perceived it, both with an accession of ill-humour which did not sweeten their manners towards Orlando.
At supper every body talked together; though their eagerness to be heard could not be justified by the importance of what they had to say, which was chiefly remarks on the players, criticism on their acting, or anecdotes of their lives, of which the younger Mr Woodford had apparently a great fund. Orlando, who knew none of them, and for whose conversation there was no vacancy if he had been disposed to converse, sat a silent auditor of this edifying discourse; now wondering at the importance affixed to people and events which appeared to him of so little consequence – now comparing the noisy group in which he sat, with the dear circle at home, and his delicious tête-à-têtes with his soft and sensible Monimia – and not unfrequently looking with some degree of wonder on the rosy cheeks, disfigured forms, and disproportioned heads of the ladies – but especially on that of Mrs Woodford, whose cheeks were as red, and whose plumage waved as formidably as that of any of the misses. He soon determined, that till he could finish his business about his commission, and prepare for his duty, he would take a lodging, and not remain where he was likely to find so little society to his taste, and where his reception was hardly civil.
Having taken this resolution for the morrow, he felt no other wish but that the disagreeable night would end; and totally neglected by every body but Miss Cassado, who now and then addressed herself to him in a sweet sentimental tone, he had disengaged his mind from the scene around him, and was picturing in his imagination the turret of his Monimia. He saw her sleeping; and her innocent dreams were of him! Every piece of furniture in the room, the books, and the work that lay scattered about it, were present to him. It was the image only of Orlando that sat at the table of Mr Woodford; the soul that animated that image was at Rayland-Hall.
But from this illussion he was startled by Woodford; who, giving him a smart blow on the shoulder with his open hand, cried, ‘Why, Captain! You are in the clouds! Hey-day! What pretty plump dairy-maid at the Hall is the object of this brown study? Never mind, my lad – a soldier finds a mistress wherever he goes; and though I dare swear thou hast broken a sixpence with her as a token of true love – she will not break her heart, I warrant her, while there’s a sturdy young carter in the county of Sussex – Come, most magnanimous Captain, cheer up! We are going to drink, in a bumper of such claret as thou hast not often tasted, Confusion to the Yankies, and that there may soon be not a drop of American blood in their rebellious hearts! – As thou art going to fight against them, thou wilt help us drink against them – Come; your glass Sir; your glass! And when that toast has passed, I have another.’
Orlando, who was more shocked and disgusted by every word his uncle spoke, now took his glass in silence; and Woodford, engaged in some of that conversation which he called roasting, with another of the young men, let him drink the wine without insisting on his repeating words, from which, almost ignorant as he was of the nature of the contest with America, his reason and humanity alike recoiled.
But he did not so escape from the future toast with which his insupportable uncle had threatened him. When the whole company had drawn round the fire (for their supper was now concluded), and every glass was again by the order of Mr Woodford charged – he, who in dining out, and in the liberal potations he had taken since he came home, had already swallowed more than was sufficient to elevate his robust spirits, stood up with his back to the fire in the middle of his family and his guests, and there gave a toast which had a very direct reference to General Tracy’s marriage with his niece Isabella, in terms so very improper that Orlando, to whom it was particularly addressed, felt every principle of personal honour or general propriety insulted by it, and positively refused not only to drink it, but to stay in the room while it was drunk. Being once roused, and feeling himself right, the vulgar ridicule of his uncle had as little effect as the more serious and angry remonstrance of his coxcomb cousin, who assured him, that only his little knowledge of the world, and rustic education, could cover him from the most serious resentment. A severe pang touched the sensible heart of Orlando, as he recollected that his beloved mother would be vexed at this difference between her brother and her son: but, when he related the cause, he was sure she would not blame, but commend him; and conscious of all the dignity of an unadultered mind, scorning to stoop to even an unworthy expression because it was authorised by custom, or insisted upon by a relation, he took his hat, and, wishing the ladies good night with great politeness, was leaving the house, when Woodford himself overtook him at the door, and apologised for his unguarded proposal, by which, however, he protested
he meant not to offend him. On this apology, and on an assurance that he should hear no more of such offensive conversation, Orlando returned to the room, though fully determined to leave the house the next day.
The licentious and vulgar mirth, however, which Mr Woodford chose to call conviviality, was at an end after this incident. James Woodford, already detesting Orlando, could hardly be civil to him: the lady of the house beheld him with a mixture of envy, contempt and terror: the misses, his cousins, felt only resentment and contempt: but the little Jessica, gone already an age in love, admired his spirit, and adored his beauty; and when her father’s chariot, with an old Hilpah who acted as a sort of duenna in it, came to fetch her home, she made a tolerably confident advance to engage the ‘brave pretty creature’ to escort her home. Orlando, however, either did not or would not understand her; and James Woodford, piqued at the preference given to Orlando, which the lady was at no pains to conceal, suffered her to depart alone.
The rest of the party immediately separated: the young barrister retired to his chambers, hardly deigning to wish his country cousin good night – Orlando, whose trouble no kindness from this family had power to allay, as their neglect had no power to increase it, went to his room little disposed to sleep; fatigue of body and mind gave him up to a few hours of forgetfulness. At dawn of morning he awoke, and, as he knew it would be long before any of the servants rose in an house where night was converted into day, he dressed himself; and as the day was to be dedicated to business, and he wished to lose as little time as possible, he went to breakfast at a coffee-house, and left a note for his uncle, saying, in civil but cold terms, that, as he had so many affairs to transact in a very short time, he must keep very irregular hours, and therefore should be a troublesome inmate in a family; for which reason he should take a lodging near the part of the town where his engagements lay, and should only occasionally trespass upon him for a dinner.
Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith Page 127